A PLEA FOR JUSTICE

Two More Voices Add to the Chorus of Those Seeking Drug Law Reform

Year in and year out, the state's district attorneys have stood in the
way of reforming the Rockefeller Drug Laws, even as the ranks of those
who favor change continue to swell. Everyone from Gov. George Pataki
to Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, to Assembly
Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, believes the time is overdue to
rewrite these draconian statutes, which have failed in their stated
purpose of stamping out drug crime in New York.

Through it all, though, the state's prosecutors have thwarted
progress. While they have advanced what they term a reform proposal of
their own, it is reform around the edges only. The prosecutors want
the harsher aspects of these statutes to remain at their disposal so
they can more easily extract plea bargains from drug crime suspects.

But now come more pleas for reform -- pleas the prosecutors should
find hard to ignore. One is no less an organization than the American
Bar Association. The other is no less a figure than U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Anthony Kennedy, considered a conservative on law-and-order
issues.

Last week, the ABA released a study on mandatory minimum sentences
that it had undertaken at the suggestion of Justice Kennedy. The
report's findings were devastating: Mandatory minimum sentences leave
no room for judges to distinguish between criminals, crimes or the
circumstances leading up to each offense. That is especially the case
when drug crimes are involved. Moreover, while mandatory sentences
keep inmates behind bars for longer periods, the report found no
evidence that the nation is safer as a result.

The report underscores what Justice Kennedy has been saying about
mandatory minimum sentences for a long time -- namely, that they give
prosecutors too much power and judges too little discretion.

Of course, the problem with the Rockefeller Drug Laws is not mandatory
minimum sentences but mandatory maximum ones -- up to life in prison
for the sale or possession of small quantities of controlled
substances. And far too often, those who sentenced under the
Rockefeller drug laws turn out to be first-time, nonviolent offenders.

So the principle remains the same whether one is considering the ABA
report or the Rockefeller drug laws: Rigid sentencing guidelines do
not enhance justice as much as they deny it. "The political phrase
'tough on crime' should not lead us into moral blindness," says
Justice Kennedy.

Come next month, the ABA will vote on whether to adopt the report's
recommendations as the official position of the organization. If that
happens, then state prosecutors ought to start looking into their
mirrors. If their colleagues in the legal profession can recognize
injustice when they see it, why can't they?